Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Noynoy’s
State of the Nation Address (Sona) was, for the third time running, a
rehash of his inaugural speech, using his usual meaningless “you are my
boss” claim; his usual no wang-wang spiel, his Gloria and her allies
corruption bashing and his mantra of change, which he now claims has
already come about.

As usual, his biggest claimed achievement was his fight against corruption, which hasn’t succeeded at all.

His
list of “achievements” is a big joke, considering the fact that these
are expected of any administration which are no achievements to speak
of, as these are what governments, locla and national are supposed to
do, such as “roads are straight and level, and properly paved”; relief
goods are ready even before a storm arrives, rescue services are always
on stand-by; people are no longer left to fend for themselves, and all
that blather that can’t be categorized as any form of presidential
achievement as these are all micro projects in the scheme of
governmental things.

Repairing roads is an achievement for Noynoy?
People are no longer left to fend for themselves? Crime is down?
Corruption is over?

Truth is, despite the figures presented by him,
there was no road map presented. Where are we as a nation going? In the
absence of a road map, obviously, the nation is still in the dark.

Noynoy did give specific details on certain social programs, with a spin . How is he to achieve it, funding wise?.... MORE

Nothing
— especially unity among Filipinos — is possible under a Noynoy
presidency, despite his State of the Nation Address (Sona) claim that
nothing is impossible if “Filipinos see that they are the only ‘bosses’
of their government; they will carry you; they will guide you; they
themselves will lead you to meaningful change.”

While he speaks of
united Filipinos, he continues with his way of constantly dividing the
people into “them” and “us,” “us” being his allies that can do no wrong,
even when they clearly have been committing too many wrongs; and
“them” being his political foes, whom he blames tp hide all his
failures.

How does he expect to unite the people, when he keeps
harping on the past, and gauges his so-called accomplishments and
achievements on charging and jailing his political foes, while quickly
absolving his friends and political allies, which too many see as a
contradiction of his overrated daang matuwid that has gone wayward?

His
Sona harked back to ancient history, when he spoke of the martial law
years that he and his family suffered under the Marcos dictatorship,
even mentioning that he was a 12-year-old when martial law was imposed.
He made it sound as if it was only he and his family who suffered under
martial law, when many more Filipinos did — under even more tragic
circumstances..... MORE

President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has friends in the region poised
“to strike out” in the event of an intervention into Syria, says a
commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards. The warning was particularly
sent to “hated” Arab countries.

­“None of Syria's friends or the great front of resistance has
yet entered the scene, and in the event that this happens, decisive
blows will be struck at the enemy, especially the hated Arab rulers,” Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, a spokesman of the country's Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Fars news agency.

No
country in particular was mentioned. Iran remains a key ally of
official Damascus, while leaders of such Gulf countries as Saudi Arabia,
Jordan or Qatar openly support Syrian rebels.... MORESource: RT.com

The Syrian army has had to evacuate residents from several areas in
the commercial hub of Aleppo as sporadic gunfire intensified, reports
RT’s Oksana Boyko. Other sources say attack helicopters were sent to
deal with the rebels in the northern city.

­Aleppo, the largest city in Syria, had long remained immune to the
17-month uprising against President Bashar Assad. This held true until
four days ago when rebels launched a “liberate Aleppo” offensive in the
city of three million.

“Sources in Aleppo report clashes in four suburbs. Residents took refuge at several university campuses,” reports RT’s correspondent in Syria, Oksana Boyko, in her Twitter microblog..... MORESource: RT.com

Large numbers of animals have been
killed by collisions with boats and propellers. Scientists fear that
cetacean watching tourism is the cause...

In early April, whale watchers off the southern coast of Sri Lanka had a
disturbing vision: the lifeless body of a blue whale 60 feet long
floating in the water about 20 miles offshore.

The body was
quickly becoming swollen and there were fish-louse sucking all the
animal's skin. Even more disturbing was the condition of the tail which
had been almost completely severed from the body.

"It was very clear it was caused by the propeller of a boat," said
Mazdak Radjainia, structural biologist and underwater photographer,
University of Auckland, New Zealand, who found the whale by chance. "It
must have been a very cruel death, because the damage was enormous."..... MORE

In his upcoming third State of the Nation Address (SONA), President
Benigno Aquino III will surely attempt to highlight how the Philippine
economy has improved under his watch to show how his administration is
an improvement over its predecessor.

Pres. Aquino will bring to the fore supposed economic successes such
as the 6.4% first quarter growth in gross domestic product (GDP),
increased budgets for social services, expanded coverage of the
conditional cash transfers, and progress under the Public-Private
Partnership (PPP) program. The president may also highlight the
country’s so-called creditor nation status with the International
Monetary Fund (IMF). The SONA may also be an occasion to boast about
more Filipinos being lifted from poverty, more lands distributed to
farmers, and additional living allowances for workers.

The reality behind the so-called gains must however be assessed
before concluding that the Aquino administration has indeed been the
much-sought change following former Pres. Arroyo’s legacy of corruption
and erosion of the people’s general welfare. Nearly ten years of the
Arroyo regime saw an unprecedented rise in joblessness and poverty,
growing inequality, eroding domestic production and fiscal troubles all
anchored on a chain of policies that catered to local and foreign
business interests. Do current indicators show a reversal of trends?
More importantly, have government policies done an about-face in favor
of the Filipino people?

Economic direction

Like the Arroyo administration, the Aquino government has refused to
reverse any of the neoliberal policies that have caused such damage to
the economy. These policies have kept the Philippine economy
underdeveloped and are designed to suit the needs of the domestic elite
and foreign business rather than of the Filipino people.

The entrenchment of globalization policies that have made the
Philippine economy up for grabs by local and transnational firms cannot
be downplayed. The removal of trade barriers has resulted in the
unabated importation of cheap goods including those which the country
can produce. The Philippines now has among the lowest tariffs in Asia.
Under Aquino’s term, quantitative restrictions on the importation of
rice are set to be lifted in accordance with commitments under the World
Trade Organization (WTO). The government has also become even more
liberal towards investments in agriculture, industries and services..... MORE

By INA ALLECO R. SILVERIO Bulatlat.com
MANILA — Solidarity Groups in Australia were quick to denounce the
Philippine Senate as the latter ratified the Australia-RP Status of
Visiting Forces Agreement (SOVFA) on July 24, 2012.The groups represent
Filipino migrants in Australia, overseas Filipino workers and students,
Australians of Filipino descent and citizens and residents of Australia.

“Let us not embroil peace-loving Australians in internal conflicts in
the Philippines. Filipinos and Australians have never been involved in
any form of hostilities. The presence of Australian troops is a
potential to a shooting war. A shooting war will raise animosities
between our two peoples. Ten of thousands of Filipinos in Australia,
migrants and citizens, will only fall victims to indiscriminate hate
that may result from any escalation of armed hostilities in the
Philippines,” they said.

The Senate adopted the resolution concurring with President Benigno
Aquino III’s ratification of the SOVFA through a vote of 17-1. The
Senate adopted Senate Resolution 788 despite the protest of Senator
Joker Arroyo. Arroyo’s position is that the SOVFA would not benefit the
Philippines.

“The Senate cannot simply not concur in treaties if other contracting
parties have no consideration of the country’s interests. The Aquino
administration only wants this ratified because of the country’s dispute
with China over the West Philippine Sea,” he was quoted as saying in
earlier reports.

Arroyo questioned the Aquino’s support for the SOVFA and said that it
was questionable why the Philippine government was enlisting the help
of Australia when it is so far away and already an ally of the United
States.
“Although the agreement is not a defense pact, its symbolism cannot
be lost on China. Let us not grab at straws. We must persevere,” he said
on reports in GMA-7 news.

Another senator who previously took a stand against the SOVFA is
Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, but she was absent during the voting.
Santiago based her opposition on her reading that the SOVFA was “vague”
in its provisions and that it risks putting the Philippines at a
disadvantage..... MORE

China’s
presence build-up in the South China Sea has raised alarms in
government, prompting the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to summon
yesterday the Chinese ambassador to protest against China’s plans to
establish a military garrison on the disputed Paracel Islands in the
South China Sea.

The DFA said it summoned Ma Keqing to lodge the
complaint, and also to object to the arrival of a military-escorted
Chinese fishing fleet near the contested Spratly Islands.

As tension
with China was again seen escalating, the Senate sealed the Palace’s
ratification of another mutual partnership for the military, which some
senators noting its urgency as a result of developments in the South
China Sea.

Voting 17-1, senators concurred with Malacañang’s ratification of the Status of Visiting Forces Agreement (SOVFA) with Australia, which was signed some two years ago or during the Arroyo administration.The
Chinese defense ministry announced plans to operate troops from
Chinese-held Sansha or Woody Island in the Paracels on Monday, a month
after Beijing designated the island as China’s administrative centre for
both the Paracel and Spratly groups..... MORE

President
Aquino’s ambiguous one-liner to refer to the controversial bill on
population control in his State of the Nation Address (Sona) the other
day earned criticisms rather than approval from the Church which he is
trying to appease but it failed to impress the Catholic Bishops’
Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) which expressed regret over it.

In
an official statement posted in the CBCP website, Fr. Melvin Castro
said it was clear that the proposed reproductive health (RH) bill or
Aquino’s version of it called responsible parenthood is not about
health but about birth control.

“We are ending the backlogs in the
education sector, but the potential for shortages remains as our student
population continues to increase. Perhaps Responsible Parenthood can
help address this,” was the only part in the Sona where Aquino referred
to the bill.

Deputy presidential spokesman Abigail Valte said the
President particularly wanted a consolidated House Bill 4244 to be
passed by Congress even before the electoral climate steps in.

Valte
described HB 4244 as the consolidated version of six other legislative
bills on the controversial reproductive health. The consolidated version
has a new title too — Act Providing for a Comprehensive Policy on
Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health, and Population and
Development, and for other purposes..... MORE

Two
senior military officers facing separate cases of plunder and torture
took over key positions in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) due
to the scheduled forced retirement today of two members of the
controversial Philippine Military Academy (PMA) Class of 1978.

Infantry
Division, was elevated as acting chief of the 9th ID with the
retirement of Maj. Gen. Josue Gaverza, of PMA Class of 1978.

Also
taking over as acting commandant of the Command and General Staff
College (CGSC) was Brig. Gen. Benito de Leon, of PMA Class of 1981,
replacing Rear Admiral Victor Emmanuel Martir, also of PMA Class of 1978
which became controversial for having former President and now detained
Pampanga Rep. Gloria Arroyo as honorary member..... MORE

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front has asked the
Malaysian-led International Monitoring Team (IMT) to investigate the
July 16 raid launched by the Philippine National Police (PNP) elite
Special Action Force (SAF) at an MILF base in Lanao del Sur where they
allegedly looted civilian properties.

Muhammad Ameen, chairman of the
MILF secretariat, said elements of the SAF, supposedly from Region X,
conducted a raid at an MILF base in Lanao del Sur purportedly in pursuit
of the members of the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and the
terrorist Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG).

The MILF claimed that the SAF
operatives raided the vicinity of the MILF’s Camp Darussalam in Butig,
Lanao del Sur without prior coordination with the secessionist group...... MORE

The Supreme Court (SC) has dismissed a petition
questioning the proceedings before the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) to
screen the next chief justice.

In a two-page resolution released by
the high court yesterday, the SC en banc citing precedents upheld the
JBC’s action in accepting applications and nominations for the position
of chief justice as well as the President’s power to appoint one as the
member of the SC.

Petitioners in the case are Homobono Adaza, Alan Paguia, Herman Tiu Laurel and Uriel Borja..... MORE

Malacañang must have realized that the charter
creating the National Bureau of Investigation specifically requires a
lawyer for one to qualify as the agency’s director, compelling President
Aquino to junk Deputy Customs Commissioner Danny Lim and instead
appoint a government prosecutor as the permanent NBI director.

Appointed
to the top government detective bureau is Nonnatus Caesar Rojas who,
incidentally, has been the NBI officer-in-charge replacing Magtanggol
Gatdula who was fired in January after he was linked to the kidnap and
extortion of an over-staying Japanese sometime last year..... MORE

Saying fugitive property developer Delfin Lee “is
no Ping Lacson,” Vice President Jejomar Binay yesterday appealed to the
Philippine National Police (PNP) and National Bureau of Investigation
(NBI) to redouble their efforts to capture Lee who faces arrest for
syndicated estafa.

The Vice President issued the appeal after lawyer
Willie Rivera, Lee’s counsel, said in a television program that his
client is still in the Philippines but is in hiding. Lee’s lawyer also
likened the case of his client to Sen. Ping Lacson who went into hiding
during the Arroyo administration.

“Delfin Lee is no Ping Lacson.
Senator Lacson was a critic of the Arroyo regime while Lee defrauded
Pag-Ibig Fund of almost P6 billion by using fake borrowers and fake
documents and destroyed the dreams of thousand of working Filipinos,” he
said..... MORE